Airframe is a marvelous novel. With this book you will learn things about the aircraft manufacturing industry that most people never think of. Technically Crichton is dead on with his aviation research. His portrayal of the television news show, "Newsline" was slightly far fetched, but well within the realm possibility. Worse things then were portrayed occur in broadcast news.

Since the death of Osama Bin Laden, interest in counterterrorism is at an all-time high. Most people don’t know that Bin Laden’s death is the culmination of years of covert operations and tactics largely overseen by Jose Rodriguez and built on by his successors. Rodriguez’s sometimes controversial tenure as Chief of the Agency’s Counterterrorism Center involved CIA officers capturing and detaining key senior Al Qaeda operatives and implementing Enhanced Interrogation Techniques....

Rodriguez takes us through his career with the Central Intelligence Agency. A career that included that period of time surrounding September 11, 2001.

In this book you will learn exactly how many were water boarded, who was water boarded and what was gained from it. He also tells us in, no uncertain terms, why enhanced interrogation is needed in this day and age.

This book is a must listen for those who still think war and espionage must be played by the Marquess of Queensberry rules. You will come away with a harsh does of the reality the United States and the rest of the world face today.

Gray Mountain

The year is 2008 and Samantha Kofer's career at a huge Wall Street law firm is on the fast track - until the recession hits and she gets downsized, furloughed, escorted out of the building. Samantha, though, is one of the "lucky" associates. She's offered an opportunity to work at a legal aid clinic for one year without pay, after which there would be a slim chance that she'd get her old job back. In a matter of days Samantha moves from Manhattan to Brady, Virginia, population 2,200, in the heart of Appalachia, a part of the world she has only read about.

Aside from writing a book that runs right along the edge of boring, John Grisham broke my cardinal rule on story telling: Do not push your political agenda down my throat.

It is painfully clear Grisham set out to write a novel vilifying the coal industry. While clearly passionate on the subject, that passion did not translate well to novel form. The story drags badly in places. There are places where the pace picks up a bit, but they are few and far between. Over all I found my mind frequently drifting to other things while this book ran. The conclusion, right down to the main character's life decisions, were easily predictable.

If you are expecting the caliber of The Rainmaker or The Confession, you are going to be disappointed.

The Lincoln Lawyer

Haller is a Lincoln Lawyer, a criminal defense pro who operates out of the backseat of his Lincoln Town Car, to defend clients at the bottom of the legal food chain. It's no wonder that he is despised by cops, prosecutors, and even some of his own clients. But an investigator is murdered for getting too close to the truth and Haller quickly discovers that his search for innocence has taken him face to face with a kind of evil as pure as a flame.

Connelly hit a home run with this one. Lots of twists and turns to keep it interesting. Lots of things to make the leading character consider his actions and motives. The book moves along very nicely, no slow spots here.

I really liked this one. Even though I read the book some time ago, it is still a very entertaining way to make the miles go by. This one gets me "highly recommended" stamp of approval.

Fahrenheit 451

The system was simple. Everyone understood it. Books were for burning, along with the houses in which they were hidden. Guy Montag was a fireman whose job it was to start fires. And he enjoyed his job. He had been a fireman for ten years, and he had never questioned the pleasure of the midnight runs or the joy of watching pages consumed by flames, never questioned anything until he met a seventeen-year-old girl who told him of a past when people were not afraid.

This is Ray Bradbury's classic tale of authoritarian government out of control. The only entertainment available to the population is a modern version of TV called the "wall." But it is strictly controlled content. Books ranging from Tom Sawyer to the Bible are banned because they are hurtful to certain groups of people. This is done to keep the population content and peaceful.

When banned books are reported, the firemen are called to burn them.

The print version was a little easier to follow because our main character is having some heated internal debates over the ethics of burning these books. Some of that internal dialog gets confusing as to what is and is not being said.

Company Man: Thirty Years of Controversy and Crisis in the CIA

In 1975, fresh out of law school and working a numbing job at the Treasury Department, John Rizzo took "a total shot in the dark" and sent his résumé to the CIA. In Company Man, Rizzo charts the CIA's evolution from shadowy entity to an organization exposed to new laws, rules, and a seemingly never-ending string of public controversies. Rizzo offers a direct window into the CIA in the years after the 9/11 attacks, when he served as the agency's top lawyer, with oversight of actions that remain the subject of intense debate today.

Rizzo's peek into the workings of the CIA is great. Through this book we get a glimpse into the people and politics that run the largest intelligence operation in the world. We also learn about the restraints that agency operates under.

The history of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques is fascinating. You will learn exactly how the CIA established the program, cleared it legally, then were thrown under the bus by people looking to make political points.

The real eye opener here is how politics plays an incredibly large role in an agency who's job should be apolitical. Give this book a shot, then decide for yourself whether politicians are compromising national security in the name politics.

Company Man is a very good story that will keep you interested. But this is non-fiction. If you are looking for a Clancy or Brown here, you are going to be diapointed.

The Cat Who Walks through Walls

When a stranger attempting to deliver a cryptic message is shot dead at his dinner table, Richard Ames is thrown headfirst into danger, intrigue, and other dimensions where Lazarus Long still thrives, where Jubal Harshaw lives surrounded by beautiful women, and where a daring plot to rescue the sentient computer called Mike can change the direction of all human history.

This Heinlein classic is a study in alternate relationships, quantum travel and good old fashioned science fiction. We follow a man living in the future as his life is turned upside down by a series of events that lead to ducking everything from local police to shadowy super villains. There are a few twists in the story.

As it is with most classic science fiction, it is fun to listen to this and compare the technology Heinlein thought up to what we really have today.

This book is a sequel to the Moon is a Harsh Mistress. It is a good listen and makes the miles go by fast.

Mr. Mercedes: A Novel

In the frigid pre-dawn hours, in a distressed Midwestern city, hundreds of desperate unemployed folks are lined up for a spot at a job fair. Without warning, a lone driver plows through the crowd in a stolen Mercedes, running over the innocent, backing up, and charging again. Eight people are killed; fifteen are wounded. The killer escapes. Mr. Mercedes is a war between good and evil, from the master of suspense whose insight into the mind of this obsessed, insane killer is chilling and unforgettable.

Stephen King weaves a tale of twists and turns that ramps up to an edge of the seat climax. All through the story King expertly builds the suspense from one tense scene to another. About the time you think you know where the story is going, King will surprise you.

This story does not move as fast as Under the Dome or Dreamcatcher. But it is worth a listen. The characters are all believable and it is easy to empathize with the protagonists.

Firestar: Firestar Saga, Book 1

It is the dawn of the 21st century, and America is in trouble. Public schools breed apathy and ignorance, and politics has become the art of the quick fix. There is one woman, though, who has both the vision and the money to leverage change. Mariesa Gorley van Huyten, heiress to one of the great American fortunes, is determined to bring America, and the rest of the world, back on track. She founds an educational subsidiary in hopes of raising a new, less cynical generation.

This is a long drawn out tale. You will need some time to spare to get through it. There are stretches that grab the reader's interest. Those parts will get you through the parts that really drag the momentum down.

Mr. Flynn develops his characters well through this. The reader gets to know them very well. Alas in the end, he kind of left us in the dark as to what happened to one main character.

The author did an admirable job of tying space flight, modern educational problems and many people's willingness to come down on the rich simply because they are rich. I like the way he handled the public schools. He also highlights a very real problem that many of the governments of the world are ignoring.

All in all, this one did ok. It kept me interested even though there were parts that had me thinking, "Come on, lets get back to the good stuff."

Influx

Particle physicist Jon Grady is ecstatic when his team achieves what they've been working toward for years: A device that can reflect gravity. Their research will revolutionize the field of physics - the crowning achievement of a career. Grady expects widespread acclaim for his entire team. The Nobel Prize. Instead, his lab is locked down by a shadowy organization whose mission is to prevent at all costs the social upheaval sudden technological advances bring.

This story will leave you thinking "what if" before you reach the end. The technology in the book is well beyond what we have now, even in secret. But there are many that believe something similar to the operations in the book is already go on in secret in order to keep the planet's population down, avoid world wide famine and to prevent technology with massive destructive potential from getting into the hands of bad actors. That group of people are especially going to like this tale.

The story is well written and well narrated. There is quite a bit of suspense that will keep you engaged through out the length of the book. Some may find the "rogue government agency out of control" a bit cliche, but I think it works here.

Ready Player One

At once wildly original and stuffed with irresistible nostalgia, Ready Player One is a spectacularly genre-busting, ambitious, and charming debut—part quest novel, part love story, and part virtual space opera set in a universe where spell-slinging mages battle giant Japanese robots, entire planets are inspired by Blade Runner, and flying DeLoreans achieve light speed.

This book will take you back to the 80's pop culture and then mix with the future. If you ever spent time in video arcades, watching John Hughes movies, in roll playing games or even on line gaming environments, you will find yourself reliving some of that time inside of a really good story.

I cannot say enough about the story and how well it comes together. Wil Wheaton's narration takes this story to an even higher level. Between the story and the narrator the miles go by fast.

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